LAquilone du Estrellas | Page 2

to make plan upon plan upon plan, rejecting possibilities, making conjectures; assessing what she knew, whom she knew, and how much she dared. It was a lot for anyone to perform in the span of time it took to set her shoulders, look at the butcher's boy, and say, "Take me to the best Kitemaker."
The butcher's boy, who at fourteen was easily impressed by young ladies of a certain disposition, immediately doffed his white cap, bowed to Maria Isabella, gestured to the street filled with people outside, and led her to the house of Melchor Antevadez, famed throughout Ciudad Meiora and environs as the Master Builder of aquilones, cometas, saranggola, and other artefactos voladores.
They waited seven hours to see him (for such was his well-deserved fame that orders from all over the realms came directly to him -- for festivals, celebrations, consecrations, funerals, regatta launches, and such) and did not speak to each other. Maria Isabella was thinking hard about the little plan in her head and the butcher's boy was thinking of how he had just lost his job for the dubious pleasure of a silent young woman's company.
He spent most of the time looking surreptitiously at her shod feet and oddly wondering whether she, like the young ladies that figured in his fantasies, painted her toes blue, in the manner of the circus artistas.
When it was finally their turn (for such was the nature of Melchor Antevadez that he made time to speak to anyone and everyone who visited him, being of humble origin himself), Maria Isabella explained what she wanted to the artisan.
"What I need," she began, "is a kite large enough to strap me onto. Then I must fly high enough to be among the stars themselves, so that anyone looking at the stars will see me among them, and I must be able to wave at least one hand to that person."
"What you need," Melchor Antevadez replied with a smile, "is a balloon. Or someone else to love."
She ignored his latter comment and told him that a balloon simply would not do, it would not be able to achieve the height she needed, didn't he understand that she needed to be among the stars?
He cleared his throat and told her that such a kite was impossible, that there was no material immediately available for such an absurd undertaking, that there was, in fact, no design that allowed for a kite that supported the weight of a person, and that it was simply impossible, impossible, impossible. Impossible to design. Impossible to find materials. No, no, it was impossible, even for the Illustrados.
She pressed him then for answers, to think through the problem; she challenged him to design such a kite, and to tell her just what these impossible materials were.
"Conceivably, I could dream of such a design, that much I'll grant you. If I concentrate hard enough I know it will come to me, that much I'll concede. But the materials are another matter."
"Please, tell me what I need to find," Maria Isabella said.
"None of it can be bought, and certainly none of it can be found here in Ciudad Meiora, although wonder can be found here if you know where to look."
"Tell me."
And so he began to tell her. Sometime during the second hour of his recitation of the list of materials, she began to take notes, and nudged the butcher's boy to try to remember what she couldn't write fast enough. At dawn the following day, Melchor Antevadez stopped speaking, reviewed the list of necessary things compiled by Maria Isabella and the butcher's boy, and said, "I think that's all I'd need. As you can see, it is more than any man could hope to accomplish."
"But I am not a man," she said to him, looking down at the thousands of items on the impossible list in her hands. The butcher's boy, by this time, was asleep, his head cradled in the crook of his thin arms, dreaming of aerialists and their blue toes.
Melchor Antevadez squinted at her. "Is any love worth all this effort? Looking for the impossible?"
Maria Isabella gave the tiniest of smiles. "What makes you think I'm in love?"
Melchor Antevadez raised an eyebrow at her denial.
"I'll get everything," she promised the Kitemaker.
"But it may take a lifetime to gather everything," the artisan said wearily.
"A lifetime is all I have," Maria Isabella told him. She then shook the butcher's boy awake.
"I cannot go alone. You're younger than me but I will sponsor you as my companion. Will you come with me?"
"Of course," mumbled butcher's boy drowsily. "After all, this shouldn't take more time than I have to spare."
"It may be significantly longer than you think," the artisan said, shaking his head.
"Then please, Ser Antevadez, dream the design and I'll have everything you